Alex George Books

Unfair Competition

Excitement is building at our house. My parents are arriving on Saturday for a two and a half week visit. It’s been over a year since they were last here and we can’t wait to see them again.

My sister Bridget lives with her family in Moraga, a town across the Bay from San Francisco, and what tends to happen is that my parents fly out to the West Coast, spend some time with them, and then fly to us. But I always worry about this arrangement. For example, on this trip, since they arrived in the States, Mum and Dad have spent a few days in Las Vegas, gone skiing in Lake Tahoe, and idly zipped in and out of San Francisco on the BART for various sight-seeing and shopping trips. Oh yes, and the weather over there right now is warm and sunny.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Now, I like living in Missouri and everything, but forgive me for saying that we can’t really compete with the touristic delights of northern California. We wondered about taking them to the Isle of Capri in Boonville, our very own local casino, but the spectacle of morons gambling away the last of their social security checks is too dispiriting to contemplate. The Bellagio it ain’t.

And, of course, there’s the weather. As I write we’ve had snow on the ground for weeks, and while the temperature may in fact creep above freezing today, it looks as if there’s more “wintery mix” on the way.

Mum and Dad tell me that they don’t care about any of this – they come to see us. I believe them, really I do, but a little part of me can’t help wishing that there was more here to entertain them. After all, Christina and I both go off to our jobs during the day, and the kids have school. So does anyone have any good suggestions as to what a pair of game, relatively sprightly 70 year olds might do to entertain themselves in mid-Missouri?